How To Grow On YouTube By Thinking Like A Viewer

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We break down how to grow on YouTube by thinking like a viewer, from using the collab feature without breaking the promise to designing for lean-back TV audiences. We also answer listener questions on mixed-format channels, browse vs search, accessibility, and naming your channel.

• why the algorithm serves viewers, not creators
• how to use the collab feature to meet expectations
• where collabs fit in your content mix
• TV viewing habits and lean-back packaging
• AI upscaling and higher-res thumbnails for TVs
• playlists and targeted end screens for binges
• browse vs search and “scary” analytics
• separating podcasts from produced videos
• accessibility cues that boost retention
• naming a channel for memorability and growth

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
As a creator, we need to start thinking more
about YouTube from the viewerstandpoint because that's who
the algorithm is for.
It's not for us.

SPEAKER_00 (00:06):
The views spiking, that's that's what you want to
see to grow.

SPEAKER_01 (00:10):
There is a 95% chance you're gonna love that
video because YouTube knows youbetter than you do.
Hey, welcome to the only podcastthat's gonna keep podcasting,
even if you're not listening.
I'm Travis, and I'm here withvery special guests once again,
Tori.
We brought her back.
What's up, Tori?

SPEAKER_00 (00:23):
Hey, thanks so much for having me back.
I'm so excited to be here again.

SPEAKER_01 (00:27):
It's the TNT Connection.

SPEAKER_00 (00:29):
Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 (00:30):
Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 (00:31):
T Squared.

SPEAKER_01 (00:32):
T Squared.
And uh we're here to help yougrow your YouTube channel,
hopefully, and answer yourquestions as along the way that
we do.
Um, really excited to talk toTori.
Tori was on a couple of weeksago, uh, did a good job, thought
it'd be fun to have you back.
Uh, as uh for those who don'tknow who maybe missed that
episode, uh Tori was one of theone-on-one coaches here at VidIQ
and now is uh really kind of incharge of the Discord and stuff.

(00:52):
And if you are not familiar withwhat Discord even is, it's a
great community.
And uh Tori, why don't you tellthem a little bit about what's
going on over there?
And by the way, it's free.
There'll be a link in thedescription in the show notes to
get into the Discord if you'reinterested after uh Tori tells
you about it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
Yeah, I would love it if you come hang out.
It's basically a community ofYouTubers where we can talk all
things YouTube.
We've got different channels forvideo feedback, thumbnails, and
it's a great place to connect,meet people to collab with, and
get some real-time humanfeedback on your next YouTube
video.
I run stages every week and Ihave open office hours on

(01:28):
Fridays if you are interested ingetting a taste of what
one-on-one coaching could looklike.

SPEAKER_01 (01:33):
It's so cool, it's so fun, and it's free.
Uh, of course, if you use any ofthe uh the services here, like
on Boost or something, youactually get your own uh area as
well.
So it's very cool.
Tons of creators that are there,and there's actually a channel
uh for the listeners of thispodcast called uh I think it's
called Videi Crew Talk, I thinkis what it is.
You can come down there andcheck it out, and I'm in there
from time to time and we'retalking about all types of

(01:54):
shenanigans, as we tend to do onthis podcast.
Of course, this podcast helpsyou grow your YouTube channel.
And um, we've been talking abouta lot of things over the last
couple of months uh and somereally cool features that
YouTube has implemented.
And one of the things that um Ithink I've talked, I think I
just talked about it recently,that I I'm really high on is the
the collab feature, which uh weuse here on the podcast a lot.

(02:15):
Um and we'll be using it inupcoming episodes because we
have some really cool gueststhat are gonna be joining us
over the next couple of weeks.
We're gonna be using thatfeature for that.
And I and then like I said, Iencourage people that if you
have other people in your nichethat you know, other channels,
to use the collab feature.
Have you have you messed aroundwith the collab feature at all?
I know that you have your ownchannel and stuff, but and I
don't know if you know anyone inyour your niche, but have you
seen it or know kind of what howit works?

SPEAKER_00 (02:35):
I have.
I've actually started to see acouple of creators in my niche
start using, and it's so cool.
It's been cool to see theminteract in the content, and I
love seeing that it like showsup on both channel pages.
I haven't used it myself, but Iam really, really intrigued by
the feature, and I think it'ssuch a cool way to start making
YouTube more fun andcollaborative for creators

(02:58):
because sometimes it can feelreally lonely creating, and I
think it's such a great way thatYouTube is facilitating us all
to kind of come together.

SPEAKER_01 (03:06):
And one of the things that's really important
about this feature, because Iit's funny, I was talking to a
really large creator who's gonnabe on the podcast in a week or
so about this feature.
I'm like, I was super pumpingthem up to them.
I'm like, you guys need to beusing this.
Uh, but and it's funny becausethey were like, So do you do we
just use it on everything?
And it made me realize I need toexplain like when and where you
use this feature and how you useit, because I knew it naturally

(03:28):
just because of the way I thinkabout it.
But yeah, as a creator, we needto start thinking more about
YouTube from the viewerstandpoint because that's who
the algorithm is for.
It's not for us.
We get to kind of use it, butit's for the viewer.
So when you saw these collabfeatures on your, I assume on
your homepage, probably whereyou saw it.
Um, and you maybe saw channelsyou've never seen before other
than the channel that you knew.

(03:49):
What was like your first thoughtwhen you saw it?
And this is important becausethis is what your viewers are
going to think the same thing.
It's like, oh, there's this dualname thing.
Now you kind of knew what itwas, but like, did it make you
want to see it more?
Were you interested in findingout more about that other
channel?
Or and be honest, like, tell usabout that.

SPEAKER_00 (04:03):
I actually found two new creators through collab
videos, which I was so excitedabout.
Um, and I loved thinking aboutlike the format of how it could
be used within my space.
It was so cool to see them inreal time together and both
filming together.
And I thought it was such a coolexperience that I haven't seen a

(04:24):
lot in my niche until this newfeature came out.
So I think it's going to be areally great tool, and I'm
excited to see more of it.

SPEAKER_01 (04:30):
And one of the things is if you are doing
content uh or if you have anidea that you're gonna collab
with someone, um, the questionthat came up with that that
other creator is like how theydo it.
And I I just had to remind themthat you're setting an
expectation with the thumbnail,right?
So obviously you're probablygonna have the other creator in
your thumbnail, and it's gonnasay in the name you and the
other creator.
So just to understand, likethat's what it looks like.

(04:52):
But you also have to think fromthe viewer perspective, what are
they expecting?
So anyone who's a viewer of yourchannel expects to see you,
which is fine.
It's gonna be on your channel,so they're gonna see you.
But now you're being shown tothat other audience.
So remember, if you want tostart growing your channel by
using this feature and you wantto, you know, tap into that
audience, you still need toprovide that other creator kind
of early on because they'regonna click it and be like,

(05:14):
okay, I don't really know whoyou are.
Where's the creator I was hopingto see, like the person I'm used
to seeing?
Um, just like you were, youknow, that you saw another
creator you've never heard ofbefore, but now like you you're
interested in them because Iassume the video kind of gave
you a little bit of bothcreators uh kind of interacting
or something like that, right?
Is that does that sound right?

SPEAKER_00 (05:32):
That's such a good point about like what the
expectations with the packagingare set, because I've seen it
done two ways, and I thought onemet my expectations more than
the other.
The first, the other collabcreator was in the intro, but
really wasn't in the rest of thevideo, which I actually found to
be really strange because I wasexpecting it to be a more
collaborative experiencethroughout.

(05:53):
And then the other video feltmore kind of true to what I was
expecting.
It kind of jumped from camera tocamera, from creator to creator.
And it felt like it aligned somuch more with like my
expectations as a viewer.

SPEAKER_01 (06:05):
And that's the thing is when you, if you set an
expectation that's you and it'sanother creator, you have to
again remember that there'speople who are not familiar with
you but are familiar with theother creator.
So you do have to give them agood amount of that in your
video.
And you're hoping that by doingthat, they like your personality
as well.
Maybe watch some of your othervideos, subscribe to you, or
whatever.
But you have to give them that.
If you don't go into the videowith that expect with knowing

(06:27):
that, that that's theexpectation you're setting, you
are more than likely gonna dokind of what probably that video
that uh Tori just talked aboutprobably has like a really good
intro retention graph, and itprobably drops quite a bit after
a while.
People are like, well, where'sthe where's my creator that I
want to watch?
Like, where's that person?
Your viewers are gonna be finewith it, but the other viewers
you're trying to tap into, youknow, I just saw my creator for

(06:47):
five minutes and now it's a45-minute video, and where they
go, never coming back.
Don't go away.

SPEAKER_00 (06:54):
So important to consider too, because it's
showing up on both channels.
So it really needs to serve bothcore audiences.
So it's really important to findthat balance between the two
creators in a collab video, Ithink.

SPEAKER_01 (07:07):
Yeah, on the podcast channel, it's gonna be super
easy because for me, it's likeI'm interviewing the other
person.
And so absolutely it's gonnawork, right?
Like that's perfect, that'sgreat.
Uh, but when you're doingcollaborative stuff, just keep
that in mind.
Um, and it's something that youyou don't want to overuse, but
you want to use it whenever it'swhenever it's uh it's relevant.
Um, so when we do collabfeatures for the vidIQ channel,
uh anytime I have one of thehosts from the main channels

(07:29):
when I'll use it.
So I actually won't use it onthis video, but weirdly enough,
I'm actually really curious howthis performs because our last
uh podcast did really well,considering we did not use the
the boost or the feature.
It did really well.
And I'm curious to see now Iknow after all that like This is
my first podcast ever.
That's right.
I forgot you had never been on apodcast before.
So you did well, like you didsuper well, which is great.

(07:49):
Uh super excited about that.
Okay, so anyway, uh some of youhave heard this about the
feature before.
I just want to kind of put thatout there again.
It is a super powerful feature.
It's one of the one of thefeatures that um YouTube has put
out that I'm actually excitedabout, so that's why I talk
about it so much.
Okay, all that being said,there's some new features um
that YouTube just talked aboutuh that are launching on TV.
Um and we've been talking aboutthis for probably a year now,

(08:10):
that TV is becoming very, veryimportant to YouTube, and it
should be important to you as acreator.
And you have to realize thatsome of your views are gonna
come from TV.
Some of the people that havewritten in have told us that a
larger percentage of theirviewership is now coming on TV.
And how do you um get ready forthat?
And one of the things that is umvery common because it actually
makes sense when you think aboutit, is the average view duration

(08:32):
on television viewers is usuallylonger.
And if you think about it, itmakes sense.
Like you're probably chilling,maybe you're eating, whatever.
Your expectations are to watchsomething longer than on your
phone.
Like you might be watching avideo uh in line to get
something to eat at arestaurant, and you only have
like 45 seconds before the youknow waiter comes over or
whatever, versus being at homesitting in front of the TV or

(08:53):
even your monitor, and you'rejust like, I have time, I have
20, 30 minutes to listen to.
So getting your videos ready forlonger content is one way that
you can kind of get ready forthat.
Uh it's kind of a revolution ina way, or an evolution.
What what are what's likeanother thing you can think of
that would make content forcontent creators seem more uh
ready for television uh viewing?

(09:13):
What's something you can thinkof?

SPEAKER_00 (09:15):
I'm like so excited to talk about this because I
actually 40% of my audiencewatches on TV.
So this is something I've had toreally lean into for my personal
channel.
Um, and length of videoexperience is definitely one
thing.
We talked about this a lot incoaching, but we have the lean
in and the lean back experience.
And with a TV viewer, you muchmore want to serve the lean back

(09:36):
kind of experience.
So you want to really hooksomeone really intentionally
with the beginning of your videoso that they do kind of sit back
and kind of settle in for therest of the content.
And if you think about like howthe TV interface works, I use my
Xbox with the TV, but it is muchmore difficult for me to
navigate.
So when I put a video on, Idon't want to be jumping from
video to video a ton.

(09:58):
And I think with TV viewershipgoing up, I think quality kind
of comes into play a little bit.
So you definitely want to befilming in like minimum 1080p
and kind of start thinking aboutthe screen size that people
might be watching you from.

SPEAKER_01 (10:12):
That also brings up another interesting subject.
Um it's it's not something youalways have to be concerned
about, but it is something youshould be aware of.
Uh, because people are watchingthings on TV, everything is kind
of magnified and made a loteasier to see.
And that could be a good or abad thing.
Like if you're trying, if you'rean educational channel of some
sort, maybe you're showingnature stuff, like you can
really zoom in on something,people can see like the details

(10:32):
of things.
That's great.
But if you have like, if you'relike a gamer or something, you
have a messy desk and you havelike a bill laying on a desk
that you never think about, andsomeone can zoom in and see your
address, you might want to thinkabout that.
That let me tell you, I do adesk look every single time I'm
about to shoot something.
I'm like, where is somethingthat says my name, my address,
something?
Because people will find thatstuff and do weird things.
So you got to think about that alittle bit more critically.

(10:55):
Um, and that won't affect mostof you.
You're like, yeah, I know, it'sfine.
But just think about the backcorner.
Uh I that's why my background'sblurred.
You don't want to see nothingback here.
You don't want to be able to dothat.
I know.

SPEAKER_00 (11:03):
Right before we started recording this, I was
like, I need to clean up myoffice.

SPEAKER_01 (11:05):
Yeah, you're like, I don't want no one to see all
this.
I don't want to see how I reallylive.
Yeah, it's uh it's something toconsider because on the TV,
again, it's gonna be clear andeasier to see.
There's another thing that uhYouTube just announced because
of all this.
Um, some of the things you'regonna do, one of them is uh AI
upscaling.
Now, this is a good thing.
Um, some people are thinking,oh, you hear AI and you start to
go, uh no.
This is upright, yeah.
It's like, ah, but it's it's itwill take like older videos that

(11:29):
are um some that are less than1080p and some that are 1080 and
upscale them up to closer to 4K,um, which is great because and
they've by the way, they've donethis for years.
They've done it on music videos.
I don't know if you noticedthis.
Like music videos on YouTubethat are like 15 years old that
were only ever in like 720p, orbeen upscale to 4K, and uh
YouTube did it.
Um, there was an article aboutit like a couple years ago when
he first started doing it.

(11:49):
So I think they're gonna usethat same technology and use it
for regular YouTube videos.
And and that's cool, again, bethinking about the things that
are you know in your shot to go,do I want that?
I don't know.
I don't know if people want tosee that in 4K.
Um, but the really cool thing isbecause of this, they're upping
the size for thumbnails from twomegabytes to like 50, so that

(12:11):
four AK uh thumbnails can lookreally good on screen.
So that's coming where yourthumbnails don't have, you know,
you like you just do a thumbnailin Photoshop or whatever, and
you're like, ah, I gotta uploadit again because it's 2.5
megabytes.
No, no longer.
It's like 50 megabytes goingforward.
That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 (12:26):
Okay, that's like my favorite thing I've heard today.
I'm actually so excited aboutthat.

SPEAKER_01 (12:31):
It's such a crazy thing because I mean, I there's
been many times where I'm like,oh, this thing's only three
megs, and I didn't realize itwhen I uploaded it.
And it's such a pain tore-upload it.
But yeah, I mean, because theyare going to be on TV screens,
you need to have higherresolution, so you can start
doing those uh 4K images with alot more clarity.
Um, doesn't mean you have to, bythe way.
Just means that you have theoption to.

SPEAKER_00 (12:53):
I think that's so great.
I have that problem literallyall the time.
It's always like 2.1.

SPEAKER_01 (12:57):
And I think which isn't big, you know, it's very
small.
Like two men.

SPEAKER_00 (13:02):
I'm curious your thoughts on utilizing playlists
more with TV viewership.
I've started to do this a lotmore with my content because me
as a viewer, I'm I love to havethings just kind of on in the
background while I'm doing stuffaround the house.
And my TV will just like keepplaying videos.
So I've been working on likebuilding out a lot of playlists
with this in mind so that ifsomebody does click into one of
my playlists, it'll be mychannel that just kind of

(13:24):
continues to play on the TV.
And I thought this would be likereally great to lean into for
watch time.

SPEAKER_01 (13:29):
Absolutely.
Those and um like a verytargeted uh end screen element
for one particular video,especially if you're talking
about so the other thing,playlist 100% sure.
Like a thousand percent,absolutely.
There used to be an option whereyou click um, I think it was
called official playlist, andthen you were locked into that
playlist.
I I think now for the most part,you stay in there, but I do know
that some some playlists you canactually get out of the channel,

(13:53):
even in the playlist.
But regardless, like, yeah, chipplaylists 100%.
But one of the things that I Italk about for every single
video, no matter what it is, andit would work great in a
playlist, is to target a videowithin that video.
So if you're we talked aboutthis with I think the chocolate
cake and the icing and stuff, wewe've had that conversation.
But like basically, um, youknow, you have the uh the video
where uh Tori has her bakingchannel again.

(14:16):
She's she's she's doing itagain.
It's crazy what she's able todo.

SPEAKER_00 (14:19):
I know, right?
Giving me quite the sweet tooththis month, so many parties and
stuff.

SPEAKER_01 (14:24):
Um, and then uh I did we do that on the Discord?
Is that where that came from?

SPEAKER_00 (14:29):
Yeah, that was on one of the Discord stages.

SPEAKER_01 (14:31):
It wasn't on the podcast, so now I've realized
the podcast channel has no ideawhat I'm talking about.
But Tori threw a party and thenshe clogged her toilet with all
these great chocolate cakes.
It was crazy.
It was a crazy time uh thatdidn't actually happen.
But um, yeah, so anyway, uhhaving a target video.
So, like for example, the videosabout baking a chocolate cake,
your target video could be um,you know, you had an icing video

(14:51):
maybe three months ago that youmade.
So at the end of that video, yougo, I just showed you how to
make the most amazing chocolatecake, but I have a video right
here that shows you how to makethe icing.
So it's a natural transition,and you can start uh you know
targeting people to specificvideos.
It's also a great little tip.
If you have a video that youknow did well or did okay, but
you think maybe should have donebetter or is a good video, and

(15:11):
because it's older, it's dead.
Targeting that video on a newervideo can get it, you know, give
it some more life uh at times.

SPEAKER_00 (15:18):
I think this is like such an underutilized strategy.
I feel like a lot of times I seecreators using the end of a
video like, subscribe.
Right.
And I feel like that's like sucha waste of a call to action
because the best viewer signalthat you can give to the
platform is for somebody tobinge watch your channel.
So I think that's like primereal estate to pitch another

(15:39):
video on your channel.
And then after two to threevideos, that person's likely to
have built trust with you andsubscribe anyway.
Yep.
So it's kind of hitting twobirds with one stone.

SPEAKER_01 (15:48):
And there's the thing of being subscribed but
not subscribed.
So there's this channel I'm kindof obsessed with right now
called uh Nomad Push.
Uh, it's this homeless guy inJapan who's just traveling
Japan.
Uh, and it's such a greatchannel, very wholesome, just
super fun and funny, and justreally interesting.
And I'm into Japanese cultureanyway, so I was kind of a
sucker to get into it.
I'm just like, oh, I gotta watchall this.
Um, and I realized the other dayI'm not subscribed, but I've

(16:11):
been watching hours of hiscontent.
It's because once again, YouTubedoesn't need you to be
subscribed to give you thecontent that you want to watch,
it's gonna just pop it up.
And by the way, I found thischannel because of the YouTube
algorithm.
I think this is reallyimportant.
I've talked about this times inthe past, but we have so many
new listeners, I want to kind ofexplain this.
This happens to everybody, butif you go to your home page, so
you go to youtube.com and youjust look at the front page,

(16:33):
there are videos of alldifferent types.
There are gonna be videos bychannels you're subscribed to,
obviously.
There's gonna be videos bychannels that you're not
subscribed to, but you'vewatched videos of theirs in the
past.
And then, and this is the gemthere's videos by channels
you've never heard about, aboutthings that you've never looked

(16:53):
for and you don't even knowthink you're interested in.
I'm gonna tell you right now, ashomework for this week,
everyone, find that on yourhomepage and click it and watch
it.
There is a 95% chance you'regonna love that video because
YouTube knows you better thanyou do.
And we've talked about searchhistory and all that stuff.
I'm just saying, I'm just sayingit you're gonna go down, and

(17:14):
this is what happened.
He popped up on my homepage.
Something I've I've never lookedup uh homeless people on
YouTube, I've never looked uplike Japanese vlogs or anything
like that.
It just knew when it put up onmy screen, I'm gonna like this.
And I clicked it because I knowbetter than to not click
something like that.
And I've been watching forhours.
When's the last time thathappened to you?
Can you remember?

SPEAKER_00 (17:32):
It's like the you out wow, my brain just is short
circuiting.
The algorithm's like whole jobis to understand your interests,
what you want to see.
So that makes total sense.
This happens to me all the time,actually, because I watch so
heavily on TV, I watch so manychannels that I'm not subscribed
to, and then I'll go to mysubscriber list to try and find
them.
And I'm like, who was what wastheir name again?

(17:54):
Like, oh my gosh, I love thatchannel.

SPEAKER_01 (17:56):
Yeah, it's so funny.
And that's why it's so greatthat you can be what I call
subscribe but not subscribe,which means you'll get all their
videos, uh, even if you aren'tsubscribed.
It just naturally comes up.
So uh great stuff.
Anyway, for those of you thatare new, this is gonna be cool.
For those of you that alwayswatch and listen, you know
what's coming up next.
We're gonna answer yourquestions.
There's a couple ways you canreach out to us.
If you're listening to the audioonly podcast, in the show notes,

(18:19):
there's an option to send us atext message, and those are the
first ones we're gonna do, andthen we'll get to the emails
after that.
Uh, I'm gonna go ahead and uhshow this first e this first
text message, and it says, bythe way, it's a text message, so
I don't know who the person is.
It says, Hey guys, I juststarted watching while I'm doing
my main job for a month, uh uh amonth and a half ago, and I
started my channel.
I really haven't found my nicheother than I like crazy weather

(18:42):
and errands and car crashes.
Just funny stuff.
I was gonna start a channel withthe reactions I get from my main
job of knocking on doors until Ifound out it's illegal to record
in Florida without theirconsent.
Yeah, it's probably not a goodidea to do that.
Uh eventually I want to get uhto a channel where I travel the
country doing adventure stuffand kind of like a daily blog.
But right now, I I started withno tech experience or editing

(19:05):
and none of that stuff.
My videos have gotten muchbetter.
Could I change the name of mychannel?
Because I do I eventually dowant to start uh start another
blog channel.
But do you think uh I think it'sI think his channel is called No
Soliciting LFMAO is a good namefor an entertainment channel.
Uh I was talking to my phone, Ihave a good one.
So uh the long and the short ofthis question is he he made

(19:26):
essentially a kind of arandom-ish channel, decided that
like I would like to recordstuff I do for work, but I can't
now.
Uh, but they do eventually wantto do this kind of adventuring
vlogging thing, and should theychange the name of their
channel?
I I assume they're early enoughin their uh video making
lifestyle that they couldprobably change it to whatever
they want to as many times asthey want, right now, right?

(19:46):
But what are your thoughts whenit comes to channel names?
Like how important is it?
How should you come up with oneand when you maybe should or
shouldn't change?

SPEAKER_00 (19:55):
I think a lot of it kind of comes down to what your
plans are for the future.
If you plan to pivot prettyheavily, I would lean into
something that's a little bitmore broad that can kind of grow
and change with you as acreator.
But if you're planning on havingthese live on like two separate
channels, I think you can get alittle bit more niche on like

(20:17):
what the channel name is.
But I think it is important,like as your audience grows,
that's gonna be a name that theystart to recognize and trust.
So changing that, I think youshould lean into making sure
that your audience audienceknows that that change is gonna
be coming, whether that's acommunity post, it's something
that you mention.
Because a lot of times if I seea new name or even a new profile

(20:40):
picture pop up from a creatorthat I don't recognize, I'm
like, oh, I'm, you know, don'tregularly watch that person and
can scroll right past it.
So I think there's an element ofconsistency there that could be
important.
But if you are going to bepivoting a lot, I would go a
little bit more broad on a nameso that it can kind of grow with
you as you change.

SPEAKER_01 (21:00):
Yeah, it and it's not something you should
typically worry too much about.
It ironically, um, it's funnybecause I I was smart in how I
named my channel, but now I wishI had named it something
different, which is funnybecause like I was when I was
thinking it through andeverything, and I just named it
my name basically, but um I knewwhat I was doing to a certain

(21:21):
degree, even though I had neverdone YouTube before.
So I'm I'm proud of myself thatI thought I needed to brand this
thing in a certain way.
That part was good.
I did that part right.
I I just wish that I had waitedto use the name I did use
because for a more kind of alluh like a more kind of fun
channel, it's just more aboutme.
Because much like anything else,you niche down to something, and

(21:42):
while you can use you know yourname for the niche you're in,
that's fine.
I actually have interestsoutside of the niche.
So I I would have preferred tohave saved that name for
something else.
And it's not that I couldn'tchange the name now, I guess,
but I I've built up like I'vebuilt up so much SEO and stuff
with it over the course ofseveral years.
And so it just doesn't makesense to do it now.

(22:02):
Like it's too late, right?
So I kind of wish I had thoughtit through a little bit more.
So all that to say, you canchange your name.
Think about it, you know, kindof tactically, uh tactfully, and
not tactfully, but like usingtactics uh in advance as much as
you can, and think about whereyou want it to go.
If it's gonna be like a vlog andadventure channel, um, I guess
you could call it LMFAO.
I I guess there's probablyalready a channel out there

(22:24):
called that, I would imagine,right?
Um, but think of there's athere's a rock group called
something something like that.

SPEAKER_00 (22:30):
Oh, a throwback, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 (22:33):
We're reaching back now.
Um but I think like at the endof the day, um trying to make it
something memorable andsomething that kind of connects
with the content you're doing isthe most important thing.
There's a guy I met many yearsago.
Uh I haven't talked to him inmany years, but I remember his
YouTube channel.
I remember his YouTube channelname because it was such an
out-of-the-wall, off the wallname, I will never forget it.

(22:55):
I'll tell you what it is.
I guarantee after I say this,you're never gonna forget this
name, which is what made me go,my gosh, this guy really knows
what he's doing.
Metal for breakfast.
How can you even forget that?
How would you ever forget this?

SPEAKER_00 (23:08):
The hook in and of itself, because now I'm curious.
Like, what is that?

SPEAKER_01 (23:11):
Yeah, does he mean like actual metal or is it music
or like what's going on?
Like, yeah, like what a greatname.
So um, yeah, I think you know,you can get you could be uh game
player 3958, I guess, if youreally wanted to be.
Uh, or you could be metal forbreakfast, right?
Like you could be somethingthat's gonna stand out and
people are gonna rememberbecause that's the other thing.
You might just like Tori said,like, sometimes you watch a

(23:33):
video and you're like, oh man, Iwish I could remember the name
of that channel so I could findit easy.
This channel I've been watching,Nomad Push, pretty easy to
remember.
Like he's a nomad, and it andthe the push came from uh you
know used to roller skate orskateboard.
So I can remember that prettyeasily, Nomad Push or pushing
forward.
Like I remember that.
He makes it part of his videos.
But if it's you know, gamer coolguy 8732, I'm never finding you

(23:55):
again.
Unless the YouTube algorithmbrings you to I'm never seeing
you again.
I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 (23:58):
Something I just thought of to keep in mind too
is like how you spell things.
Because I've seen one creatorthat I'm friends with use a name
and he used repetitive lettersto kind of like brand it down a
little bit.

SPEAKER_01 (24:11):
But the irony of what you're saying right now is
not lost in me.
I'm gonna tell you after you'redone.
Let's keep going.

SPEAKER_00 (24:15):
It was so incredibly hard for me to find him.
And as soon as he like becamemore established, it popped up,
you know, quicker in the searchbar.
But early on, that's somethingto keep in mind too is you want
a name that's going to be kindof like easy to spell.
You don't want to get tooobscure with it because then the
search bar is not your friend.

SPEAKER_01 (24:32):
Right.
So the reason I made I made ajoke about that is that the the
next guest on this channel hasthat exact I don't want to say
issue, but they literally haveuh like three of the same letter
when it spells the worddifferently.
So you still pronounce it thesame, but so then you're trying
to remember like, is it two,three E's, four E's, five, seven
E?
Like, what is it?

(24:53):
I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 (24:54):
It seems cool from a branding perspective, but you
always kind of want to keep likebeing findable in mind.

SPEAKER_01 (25:00):
I gotta remember to also talk to them about them.
They changed their name brieflythe first day they launched.
Really interesting stuff.
Anyway, we'll get to that in aweek or so.
Um, okay, so next one is anothertext message from another
creator, which we love those.
Again, if you're listening tothe audio podcast, there's a
link in the show notes therethat tells you how to do it.
And this one says, Hello,Travis, and co-star of the week.
That's you, by the way.

(25:21):
You're co-star of the week.
Aussie listener here.
I have to throw Tim Tams intothe mix for the best candy slash
biscuits.
So biscuits is like the Britishterm for like candies.

SPEAKER_00 (25:30):
Cookies?

SPEAKER_01 (25:31):
Yeah, cookies, yeah.
Yep.
Yeah, look at that.
You knew that.
Look at that.
Uh my YouTube videos arereaching around.
So by the way, this is one ofthe there's a couple of um
messages here that were so long,I had to edit them down to fit
into this.
And they're the last one is thesame thing.
Like it was such a great email,but I had to like edit it down.
So there's certain times whereit's like, oh, did I miss
something?
You and yes, you did.

(25:51):
Uh my YouTube videos reacharound 300 people for a channel
that has about 150 subscribersand is three years old.
I also produce two videopodcasts, one with over 100
episodes and another with 52.
I'm wondering if YouTubeAnalytics specifically has
analytics specifically forpodcast listeners, listeners, or
if everything just falls underthe regular video analytics.
The reason I ask is that mypodcast videos only get around

(26:13):
20 views each, which feels lowcompared to my other videos.
Even after bringing on aprofessional editor for the
video podcast, the stats haven'treally changed.
Interestingly, on traditionalpodcast platforms, I'm getting
thousands of downloads.
A big contrast from YouTube.
What are your thoughts?
Do you find us with your ownpodcasts?
All right.
So now we gotta talk about thehistory of this podcast and some
other things.
So there's a lot, a lot, there'sa lot to dig in here.

SPEAKER_00 (26:33):
This is a good question.

SPEAKER_01 (26:35):
Yeah, it's a great question because you know,
people should be using YouTubefor podcasts.
I literally just told this to acreator the other day.
Um, because it actually has adiscovery engine, which most
podcast platforms don't actuallyhave.
You just kind of have to knowabout them.
All right.
So the one question, let's startwith the very beginning.
They said, uh, does it haveanalytics specifically for
podcasts?
Yes, technically.
But the thing about podcasts onYouTube is from the analytics

(26:58):
side, it's just a playlist.
That's what's weird about it.
It's actually just a playlist.
Having said that, it's treatedslightly differently because
those show up in in YouTubemusic, um, among other places.
So while like the search anddiscovery is treated slightly
differently, the only analyticsare in the playlist options for
analytics.
So yeah, it's not ideal.

(27:19):
It feels like they kind of threwsomething together that they
needed to do.
Uh it's been pretty successfulwith them, which is great.
Uh, I'll talk about how it'sdone for us in a minute.
Um, the next question was so itdoes follow in regular
analytics, but under playlists.
And then he mentions um uh thattheir video play uh podcasts are

(27:39):
getting lower compared to othervideos.

So here's the thing (27:41):
if you're doing mixed type of content,
one's gonna do better than theother.
If if you're doing podcastcontent and then edited content
is like 15 minutes versus likean hour-long podcast or
something, 100% I can tell youthat a lot of times gonna it's
gonna be different.
You have different expectations.
You have people that want tolisten for a podcast, or someone
is here for like 10 minutes, youknow.

SPEAKER_00 (27:59):
Oh, these are all on the same channel?

SPEAKER_01 (28:01):
This is what they're implying.
This is what is so because itsays, well, I mean, maybe I'm
reading it wrong, but it saysthe reason I ask is because my
podcast videos only get around20 views at least, which seems
low compared to my other videos.
So it feels like they're talkingabout on the same channel.
Although they did say they haveum videos and podcasts channel
or have a channel with 150subscribers, three years old,

(28:23):
also produce two video podcasts,but it doesn't say that they're
doing it on a different channel.
So I'm assuming this is all onthe same.
I'm assuming this is all on thesame channel.
So that's the question I'm gonnaanswer.
Okay so yes, it will seemdifferent because the viewership
is different.
So think about it like this umsomeone watches one of your
produced content that's shorterthan a podcast, they like it.
Uh YouTube is right away, justlike we talked about earlier,

(28:45):
you're gonna show them othervideos, especially new videos
that you put out.
But now they're seeing anhour-long podcast or a 40-minute
podcast or a 30-minute podcast,and they're not really
interested, they're not gonnaclick it.
But then the people who watchthe podcast, they're like, Oh, I
like the podcast, but I don'treally care for the produced
content.
So when they're shown theproduced content, they don't
click on that.
So there's gonna be less of someand more of the other.
And we've seen this on thischannel as well.

(29:07):
Um so they say it really hasn'tchanged even with an editor, and
that's that's why we have aspecific channel for the
podcast.
That's why it's not on the mainchannel.
Something that we've I was kindof an advocate for for a long
time, is to not put the podcaststuff on the main channel
because it's not the sameaudience.

SPEAKER_00 (29:21):
It's an entirely different format of
entertainment, too.

SPEAKER_01 (29:26):
And I was targeting different people, which is work.
So our our um analytics uh likethe age group I was targeting
was older, and we are have amuch older age group here than
we than on the main channel, andour retention and average view
duration is much larger than themain channel.
So um, I guess the and we werelike, So, what are your
thoughts?
Okay, so on this channel, so theaudio podcast that this is a

(29:48):
part of is actually years old.
It's years old, way before me.
Um and has had many hosts overthe the years.
When I came on and started doingit, I'm the one that came up
with the idea.
For having a YouTube channel forit.
I don't know why we didn't haveit beforehand.
Seems kind of weird that wedidn't, but um, that was my
idea.
So um once we got that going, umwhen you first start a YouTube

(30:12):
channel, it's easier in general,not all the time, but in
general, to have a producedpiece of content do better than
like a long form piece ofcontent because no one knows who
you are, right?
So it's easier for someone tocome in and watch something for
two minutes or so and then leavethan and like I've never seen
this guy before, and he's got anhour-long thing.
I don't know if I'm ever gonnawatch this, right?
They're probably not gonna clickin.
So what was happening isinitially when we launched,

(30:32):
anything that was produced thatwas like, you know, five to
seven minutes did pretty well.
And then a podcast didn't do aswell.
I mean, they were still doingwell on the audio podcast
platform because they've beenit's been around for years, so
it's got a natural built-inaudience.
Um, but over time, as more andmore people started listening to
the audio, the video podcasthere on the channel, the
opposite started happening.
We would, whenever we put out aproduced uh shorter version of

(30:55):
something, it would do lessgood, not get as many
impressions as the long formpodcast.
So it was almost a guaranteethat if we put out like a
five-minute video, it was gonnabe eight, nine, or ten of ten.
And anything longer form wasalways gonna be in the top five
or so.
So that naturally happens, butthat's because of the type of
viewership that you'recultivating for that channel.

(31:15):
Have you seen this on otherchannels that do like mixed uh
length of stuff?
Do you watch any channels thatdo that?

SPEAKER_00 (31:20):
I have.
I so I kind of recently got intowatching podcasts.
I've always been a listener ofpodcasts, but now that I like to
put things on my TV while I dorandom stuff around my house, I
have started looking for likenewer podcasts because YouTube
has that more search discoverystyle platform.
It's been a great way for me tofind new podcasters.

(31:42):
My viewer behavior, I typicallytended to pick shorter podcasts,
but not hyper short because Istill wanted some value and kind
of a sneak peek of like what afull hour-long episode would be.
So I found myself clicking on alot of like 25, 30 minute
podcasts to get a taste fortheir interview style, their
personality before I was divinginto the 45 hour, hour plus long

(32:05):
conversations.
But I don't think I ever onceclicked on like anything, I
guess, hyper discoverable, fiveto seven minutes, because I was
looking for that true podcastformat, which tends to be longer
form.

SPEAKER_01 (32:19):
Interesting.
Yeah, because uh a lot of thetimes, and one of the things we
were doing was taking segmentsfrom the podcast as shorter
clips and putting them on thechannel.
And you would think that'd be agreat discovery.
And it is still a discovery, agreat discovery thing, but I
think what Tori just saidthere's really interesting, is
that you also have to thinkabout, and I say this all the
time, it's like be obsessedabout the viewer and what their
sensibilities about everythingare.
And if that's the sensibilitiesof a podcast viewer or listener,

(32:41):
then that's what you need to do.
Like there's no shortcut aroundthat.
You're not gonna trick someoneinto doing something they don't
want to do.

SPEAKER_00 (32:46):
So if you get too short with it, you're really not
getting like kind of a sense forhow that person interacts with
someone in a casual way or likehow they guide a conversation.
But like a 20, 25 minute longconversation felt like a small
enough time commitment for me toexplore new people and really
get a feel for what I couldexpect moving forward.
And I think a lot of it comesdown to those expectations.

SPEAKER_01 (33:08):
100%, 100%.
And it's really important toknow that a clips channel by
itself could perform better thanthe clips on the channel that
has the podcasts.
And we've seen this before, it'sdone all over YouTube.
And it also makes sense becauseback to what we were saying,
it's like the viewership thatyou're cultivating has an
average view duration thatthey're kind of willing to
commit to.
And if it's longer than theshort videos, YouTube generally

(33:29):
speaking doesn't from it's beenmy experience.
I mean, it's not a it's not ahundred percent thing that
happens all the time, but it'sbeen my experience, doesn't
generally push those videos outto some.
If you have a if your averageview duration on a video is like
uh on your podcast is like 10 to15 minutes and you have some
seven minute videos, YouTube'sgonna look for that longer view
duration, it's gonna look forother videos on your in your
back catalog that are longerthan seven minutes because it

(33:49):
wants all that you know watchtime and it's trying to uh give
a person what they want towatch.
Um, so you're gonna see lessimpressions on the shorter
videos if that's what yourviewership is, and vice versa,
if your if your audience, andthis is why we see this on
YouTube shorts channels thathave like millions of
subscribers, but then when theyput out a long form video, they
get like 2,000 views.
Um, that's the same idea.

(34:10):
It's like people are watchingand they're and what they're
interested in is is within acertain kind of time period for
the type of content they'rewatching.
So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (34:18):
I almost wonder if it could like put you at a
disadvantage to do a lot ofthose like hyper short videos
out of the gate because then youare kind of calling in and
setting that initial expectationfor like high impact delivery,
short, punchy videos, and you'rebringing in people with a lot
shorter attention span.
And I think that could probablyset those longer form videos
that you're really relying onand love creating the most up

(34:40):
for a little bit of stumblingout of the gate.

SPEAKER_01 (34:42):
Yeah, it's true.
And I again, you could stillhave a separate channel for it,
but then that seems kind of likea hassle.
I think YouTube eventually wantsto be able to put everything on
one channel, but they're stillnot quite there yet.
Like they've done a good job oflike shorts don't really impact
long form much anymore.
They used to when they firstcame out.
Live streams used to negativelyimpact videos, like they don't
really, it doesn't really happenanymore.
It seems like they've kind offixed that.

(35:03):
But uh I I still think this isthe thing that seems to still be
universally true.
Um, it's funny because I hadthis exact time we're gonna talk
about this in the next episode.
But like had the same same exactconversation with a creator
yesterday or day before, and um,you know, their videos were
routinely like 25, 30 minutes.
And I was explaining them thisexact concept.
I was like, if you put out aseven-minute video tomorrow, you
know it's gonna it's gonna tank.

(35:24):
It's gonna be one of your worstperforming videos ever.
And they didn't even argue thepoint.
They were like, Yeah, you'reprobably right.
Because I think they even kindof knew, like subconsciously,
even though it wasn't somethingthey ever thought about, they
kind of knew, which is why theywere always doing these kind of
longer videos without evenknowing why they were
necessarily doing it that way.
You just kind of know after awhile, you know?

SPEAKER_00 (35:41):
Well, I wonder if like too, it's like a
subconscious realization.
Like, I as a viewer, if uh Iwatch a lot of like vlogs,
lifestyle content, ifsomething's shorter than 20
minutes, I'm not clicking on it.

SPEAKER_01 (35:50):
You feel like you're not gonna get enough out of it.

SPEAKER_00 (35:52):
Yeah, because I'm watching on my TV, and that
means I have to like clickbuttons on my Xbox again in the
do that.

SPEAKER_01 (36:02):
So true, so good.

SPEAKER_00 (36:03):
Um I'm curious your thoughts on discoverability for
um podcasts, because I know I'veheard a lot of people say kind
of doing those shorter versions,but like per kind of the
conversation we just had, Idon't know if that's the best
route.
So I'm curious like what yourstrategies are for like growth
and discoverability on theplatform for a podcast.

SPEAKER_01 (36:22):
Yeah, so I've been doing podcasts for like well
over a decade and differentvarious ones and various success
rates.
Like some I've been I've beenvery successful with, like
surprisingly successful, andthen others, like they're just
little fun little things withfriends, and then you know, a
hundred people ever heard them.
Uh, but this is the best time toever to ever really kind of
start a podcast, mainly becauseof YouTube's uh discoverability.

(36:43):
Before, like you just had tohope and wish and pray and like
uh tell your Facebook friendsand maybe they listened, maybe
they didn't, you know what Imean?
Like there's and if you somehowgot ranked, then sometimes that
would help.
But now more than ever, um, withYouTube specifically, um, if
you're covering good topics andhave like a really interesting
kind of thing to that you'redoing, then it can get

(37:05):
discovered pretty easily.
Um, it doesn't mean that everypodcast that talks about the new
cool viral thing is going to geta lot of views or listens.
It's just it's not it's justthere's just too many videos and
too few people, although there'sa lot of people, right?
It's just not gonna happen.
However, you are like I telleveryone, you just gotta try to
stack the deck in your favor.
Like I I understand that noteverything's guaranteed, but if

(37:27):
you stack the deck in your favorenough times, something's gonna
happen.
Something's gonna happen.
It's gonna it's gonna be goodfor you.
So if you're just starting out apodcast channel, you really do
need to hit kind of the um thebigger trending subjects in
whatever niche it is you'redoing.
Like if you're doing aninterview thing, like try to
find people that are impactingthe world in some interesting
way, uh, but also make sure thatit's true to your your podcast

(37:48):
vision.
You don't want to do like youdon't have a video game podcast
and you're like interviewing apolitician because he's in the
news.
Like it doesn't make any sense.
Like, what are you doing?
Unless you're talking about lawsof a video game, it's a
different story.
But um, yeah, I mean you do wantto keep keep true to what the
the audience for that podcast isgoing to be interested in down
the line.
So a lot of it is just um it'skind of the same stuff as making

(38:10):
like a good successful YouTubechannel.
It's just it's a differentformat of of content though.

unknown (38:14):
Really?

SPEAKER_01 (38:15):
Yeah.
Um all right, so let's get intosome email questions.
So if you want to email us aquestion, you can do that as
well.
Uh you send us an email totheboost at vidIQ.com.
That's theboost at vidIQ.com.
And our first one comes fromLeona.
Hello to all of you.
I was watching you on YouTubelast week and you started
discuss discussing a creator'squestion about game a gameplay

(38:36):
podcast, so no visuals.
So let me real quick uh catchpeople up who missed it.
There was an email in aboutsomeone who said that they have
a um a let's play channel withan AI co-host as a podcast
co-host, which was interesting.
Um, but it was verbal only aboutlet's plays, which was kind of
hard to like get behind.
It but we we kind of found somesolutions to it.

(38:58):
But anyway, this is what thiscreator says.
I was waiting for someone totalk about blind and low vision
gamers.
I was shouting at the TV at onepoint.
So here's the person who'swatching the podcast on TV.
So case in point, right?
I mean, like literally, we justwe just said that.
And by the way, I did not tellTori that.
Tori had no idea this was comingup.
She just said this TV has takenover.

(39:20):
Uh, people with disabilities dostuff, fun stuff included.
And geez, it would be nice tohave cool channels where we can
participate and enjoy just likeeverybody else.
So maybe this creators podcastcould work for us.
Might it entice others to thinkto use their creativity to
include us in exploring whatthey're passionate about?
Just an idea of mall.
Thank you for listening.
Leona, first of all, hats off.
That's great.
You're actually right.

(39:40):
This reminds me of when um whenI was early on uh uh in my
YouTube journey and I was doinguh headphone uh reviews, and I
got a comment by someone whosaid, Um, can you do can you
talk about what it's like towear glasses with the
headphones?
Because that makes a differenceto me.
And at the time I wasn't wearingglasses, I didn't need to wear
glasses.

(40:01):
And I was like, Yeah, sure.
I mean, I have glasses around, Ican totally put them on and make
that as a part of a thing.
And from that point forward, Ikind of started thinking more
about people that aredifferently abled in some way
than we are, and to think thatand keep that in consideration.
And here Leona brings up a pointthat's really interesting.
So for that particular channel,it is it is still kind of a a

(40:24):
reach, just because I think thatperson wanted to grow their
channel, and I think that whilethere's definitely an
underserved community of peoplewith disabilities, which is
totally I listen, I agree withthis entire email.
I 100% agree with it.
I think if that person wants togrow that channel to the point
that I think they were lookingfor, they're gonna have to do
something a little different.
Having said that, there is anunderserved uh audience that

(40:48):
could be very interested inthings um when they can't
participate in the same way thatothers can on YouTube.
So, for blind and low visiongamers, for example, uh a more
uh descriptive um kind ofcontent would be good for them.
That's totally, totally true.
And I love how uh Leona says umuh people with disabilities do

(41:10):
stuff, fun stuff included.
Fair.
I mean, fair.
I would hope that y'all aretrying to do some fun stuff.
What are your thoughts when youhear uh uh you know a person who
has this ability saying, Listen,what about us?

SPEAKER_00 (41:25):
I love that so much, and I feel like there's probably
such a great community to bebuilt around that, like a really
community-focused channel whereyou can get to know other people
that are feeling this way withother like high audience volume
content.
And I also love the kind ofintegration of just more sensory

(41:46):
things in content.
I am often like looking awayfrom the TV.
So, like adding in those extradescriptions, I think serves
everyone, but invites morepeople that do have those um
limitations in to enjoy yourcontent as well.
Because there's so manydifferent levels of that too.
Like whether you see low visionor completely blind, I think

(42:09):
that's such a cool way to bringmore people in and serve
everyone better, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 (42:16):
Yeah, I I I would have to try to think of like
what are some good ways to dothat.
So there are um certain videogames that use um like high
contrast colors that uh help uhpeople with uh you know vision
impairments to play them.
Um so I wonder if yeah, I don'tknow, but you could do like
specific uh playthroughs withthat.

(42:36):
Um I think it would take someonereally more creative than even
me to figure out like somereally great content for this,
but I think it is an underservedcommunity that could do very
well and it is worth exploringfor sure.
Now, I think if you're tryingto, if you already have content,
you're like, I would like to bea little bit more inclusive,
like what kind of things could Ido?
Obviously, um things likeburn-in subtitles help um for

(42:57):
those who have hearingdisabilities because the YouTube
transcription is not alwaysgreat.
Um, you know, that sort of thingcould be good.
Um Yeah, I'm trying to think ofwhat else would be good.
Can you think of anything, Tori?
I mean, that seems to be one wayto think of it.

SPEAKER_00 (43:12):
This is like the perfect scenario to really work
through your target audience andlike really think about what
you're looking for and how youwould want that to be delivered
to you.
Because often, in my experience,my target audience tends to be a
prior version or some version ofmyself.
So I think that's where like themagic is gonna happen is like

(43:34):
really understanding like whatyou're looking for and what you
feel like is missing from thecontent you're watching and how
you can integrate that to servesomeone who's looking for
something like you are.

SPEAKER_01 (43:44):
I couldn't have said it any better.
I think that was that wasfreaking amazing.
Thank you.
All right, we got the finalemail.
This one is one I've had toedit.
So one of the things is likeit's almost uh killing your
darlings, is one of the phrasesyou use.
Um some people send in reallylong emails um that are easy to
edit.
Some put in really long emailsthat are like, wow, this is
actually all really relevant.

(44:05):
And I don't want to actuallyedit any of it, but I kind of
have to because it only only somuch fits on this thing.
And this is one of those.
This one's by uh I don't know ifit's Joseph or Joseph or
something like that, but it's uhOh, this is gonna have me like
squinting.
Yeah, I'll marry.
Don't worry.
Uh I'm a very new creator uhwith with my channel having gone
live in September of this year,which is crazy.
And I post twice the two timesuh a week.

(44:25):
My niche, which is benchmarkingGPU performance against
different games, is verysaturated with some serious big
players, which by the way, Iconsume this content all the
time.
So I know the players of whichhe speaks.
After only a couple of months, Iwould say that I've had some
moderate newbie success withsome with many of my videos
going between four and sevenhundred views a week.
That's really great, actually.
For a new creator that's onlybeen around for a little bit
over a month.
That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 (44:46):
That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 (44:47):
Most of the views, and again, remember, a lot of
this is truncated.
Most of the views of my videosare driven by search.
However, a few of my videos hitbig with the almighty browse
feature, getting thousands ofimpressions every hour.
But it bothered me.
Uh, the views on my content getsearch driven.
So why the change?
Using the awesome teachings ofthe VidEye crew, I dove deep
into the dark underbelly ofanalytics, specifically the

(45:10):
traffic.

SPEAKER_00 (45:10):
These descriptor words are fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 (45:13):
Listen, our audience is incredible.
Like, if you don't know ouraudience, you should see some of
the emails we've gotten over thelast year and a half.
We have the most incredibleaudience because you gotta
remember, they're all likecreatives.
Um, I found that the traffic forthis one particular video was
coming primarily from the browsefeature.
So I wouldn't call them usefulviews with an AVD under two
minutes, which by the way,before I'm just gonna say before
I get into the rest of this,actually, those are the best

(45:35):
views, is browse.
Uh, indicating that the wrongaudience was clicking the video.
Search ranked in second place,but it was a distance second
compared to browse, and its AVDwas well over three minutes,
typical for my channel.
I was devastated.
What's the point of high viewsif it wasn't for the right
audience?
During the testing of the game,I found that certain setting
broke the game, but this wasmuch later in the benchmark run.
So I titled my thumbnail, DoesFSR4 Break This Game?

(45:58):
I felt bad.
It might not it might not havebeen clickbait, but I decided it
was misleading to the fullcontent of the video.
So I quickly changed thethumbnail to a more
representation, morerepresentative of the content,
and this drove analytics back toexpectations.
So I'm left to wonder, should Ijust have left it alone?
And then he kind of talks alittle bit more in the email
about like the back and forthand stuff.
But I think this so this bringsup a lot of interesting things.

(46:21):
Whose analytics do you want?
The ones that you're used to andthat you like, or do you want to
grow?
Because those might bedifferent.
The fact that he changed, Ithought this was interesting.
He changed the everything sothat it went back into analytics
he was used to, not intoanalytics that gave him more
impressions, which to me is theopposite of what you should be
doing.

SPEAKER_00 (46:37):
Like right, analytics that scare me are my
favorite ones.

SPEAKER_01 (46:40):
Those are the best ones.
They're the bestest ones.
I think it's funny because umseeing AVD go down is actually
exactly what happens when you'reshown to a new audience.
That's supposed to happen.

SPEAKER_00 (46:50):
100% your picture rate will like tank too.

SPEAKER_01 (46:53):
Everything tanks, but you get more views and more
subscribers.
That's what you want, right?
And the more successful a videois, the more this happens.
And um I love uh emails likethis because when your creator
just kind of starting out, andthis person's just starting out
like a month, right?
They don't know this is theactual norm.
Like that's supposed to happen.
You are so your AVD and your CTRare supposed to go down over

(47:15):
time because new people don'tknow who you are, and they're
only kind of interested.
And he's like, they're kind ofworthless.
No, browse is what you want,browse is how you grow the
fastest.
Um, and that's where all theviral hits come from, and that's
where a lot of your audiencethat are that not only subscribe
but like become your fans comefrom.
Like all that stuff comes frombrowse.
That's exactly where you want tobe.

SPEAKER_00 (47:34):
Search is great, but search is a good title, too.
Like it was so well crafted.

SPEAKER_01 (47:39):
Very well done.
Like, you shouldn't have changedit.
Um, search, nothing wrong withit, gets you evergreen views uh
for certain topics, which isfine, but rarely converts to
subscribers because usuallyyou're looking for something and
then you're out.
Remember when you clog thetoilet, you were looking at how
to unclog the toilet.
You didn't subscribe to Joe thePlumber.

(48:00):
Like Joe the Plumber, I don'tneed to know you.
I've seen too much of you.
Yeah, I just needed to help, andthen I'm out.
But browse, like we talked aboutearlier when that Japanese
channel came up on my thing.
I've been watching them all allI watch them today.
I watch them multiple timestoday.
And I think it's important tounderstand that browse is where
the magic happens on thehomepage and stuff like that.

(48:20):
YouTube knows where to send yourcontent to.
That was that whole thing wetalked about at the beginning of
this episode.
You want to be there.
You don't want it to fit intoyour analytics, you want it to
fit into successful analytics,which might be different than
what you currently have.
Uh, what are your thoughts onthis whole email?

SPEAKER_00 (48:36):
I think, again, browse is always where I'm
hoping to land.
And I felt like that was such agood crafted title for Browse,
especially in that niche.
I worked with a couple ofcreators that kind of created in
this space.
And specifically with likebenchmark testing, that's gonna
pique a lot of curiosity becausethat's what something someone is
looking to avoid is their gamebreaking like during the

(48:59):
gameplay.
And especially if they'reconsidering what they want for a
PC build or something like that,that's like a really important
metric, and that's gonna draw aton of curiosity.
And sometimes they can feel alittle bit clickbaity, but I
think how you structure yourintro can really kind of make
that a little bit easier for theviewer.

(49:19):
So I would, in the intro of avideo like that, put the clip of
the game breaking and being mebeing like, ah, and then when it
comes later in the video, you'vealready kind of cemented in my
head that it does, in fact,break the game.
And I want to sit and watch thathappen to see what exactly
caused it to break.
So I feel like this was such awell-crafted video, and I would
encourage this creator to trythis again because this is where

(49:43):
a channel like this is gonna seeexplosive growth, and this is
where those audience members aregonna come from that want to see
you test anything and everythingbecause over time they just
start to enjoy you as a creator.

SPEAKER_01 (49:54):
Yeah, it's funny that he ended up nerfing his
whole video by putting athumbnail on stuff that probably
had him get less lessimpressions and probably he said
his AVD, I guess his AVD wentback up, but it's like uh yeah,
I understand what he's saying bysaying feeling like they're
empty because he saw AVD godown, but that's what's supposed
to happen.
So again, new creator, probablydidn't know that.

(50:15):
You saw the the the success ofYouTube, you just didn't know
that that's what it looked like.

SPEAKER_00 (50:19):
So a lot of times we think that those metrics are
super important for a videosuccess, like high AVD, high
click-through rates.
When we see those tank, like ofcourse, we're like, what did I
do wrong?
This isn't working.
But really, when you hit browse,that's so so normal.
And the views spiking, that'sthat's what you want to see
growth.

SPEAKER_01 (50:37):
That's what you want.
That's literally what you want.
That's all the good things comefrom that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So uh I would encourage yes, Iwould answer the question to did
you do it too real quick?
Yes, I I think you did.
Um, let things rock.
Uh, learn the the ups and downsof YouTube because you still got
a long way to go.
Uh, there's a lot of like weirdthings you're gonna learn uh
through the process of this.
And uh seeing uh click-throughrates and Navy Ds go down um is

(51:01):
normal as YouTube tries to finda new audience for you.
You don't want just the audienceyou have, you want a new, larger
and hopefully more uh more coolaudience as well.
Like so, yeah, I I love thisquestion again because it's
something that um we've talked alittle bit about, but probably
not it not in depth of saying,like, oh yeah, that's right.
You should you should see thingsgo down.
Like that's fine.

(51:21):
As long as views go up,everything else goes down.
That's okay.
That's totally okay.
It's fine.
It's fine.

SPEAKER_00 (51:26):
Well, it's just kind of like reminding yourself like
what your goals are on theplatform.
If your goals are to grow, likethat's that's what you're
looking for.
So sometimes those down arrowslike that show on your like main
analytics, like nobody likes tosee that.
But sometimes that's a goodthing.
So always reminding yourself ifgrowth is your focus, that high
view counts and subscriberconversion is what you're

(51:48):
shooting for.

SPEAKER_01 (51:49):
And also, uh, just because a video out of the gate
tanks doesn't mean it'll tankforever.
There's tons of videos thatstarted out like a 10 of 10 for
months that have gottenridiculous amount of views.

SPEAKER_00 (52:01):
Um especially on new channels.
Like the last time I was on thepodcast, we talked about that
one that I put out that was astinker for like three weeks
before it took off.

SPEAKER_01 (52:10):
That's right.
Is it still going?
What's what's going on with yourcontent now?

SPEAKER_00 (52:14):
Is it it stalled out a little, um, and I've kind of
let that channel die.
But I did the content well on mymain channel, so now I'm gonna
try the content well because Isaw success with it on that
channel and see if I can bringit back to life.

SPEAKER_01 (52:26):
Oh, very cool.
Very excited about that.
We'll have to come back with usand uh tell us how that went in
a couple of weeks or a week orso and tell us how things are
going.

SPEAKER_00 (52:33):
Yeah, I would love to.

SPEAKER_01 (52:34):
So if y'all uh like Tori, as you should, uh there's
a link in the description in theshow notes so that you can go
check out the Discord where sheis every day, except for not
weekends.
Uh, you can go uh chat with Toriand the thousands, literally
thousands of creators that arein Discord um and just kind of
learn some stuff 24-7.
And I'm like I said, I'm inthere in the uh the uh the

(52:57):
podcast channel room.
Plus, uh I did a stage recently,which is why we were talking
about these jokes that uh Toriand I did a whole stage this
past week.
And uh that was fun too.
And I'll be in there from timeto time as well.
So make sure you check thoseout.
And there's other links in thedescription if you're
interested.
And of course, if you're on theYouTube channel, you know what
you can do.
You can subscribe if you feellike it.
Or even better, you can watchanother podcast.

(53:19):
There's gonna be uh end screenhere in a minute.
If you're on the audio podcast,leaving us a five star review is
always amazing and appreciated.
And for Tori, I'm Travis.
We will see y'all in the nextone.